Diversionary Tactics
by sasha1600
Summary: It's a slow week at the office, and Tony is bored.  That's never a good thing.  Warning: spanking of adults.  Don't like?  Don't read!
1. Chapter 1

**Diversionary Tactics**

**Summary**: It's a slow week at the office, and Tony is bored. That's never a good thing. **Warning**: spanking of adults. Don't like? Don't read!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own them, I just play with them.

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A/N: This is part of my 'Lessons' series and takes place after Trial by (Camp)fire. This one should make sense on its own.

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**Warning: this story contains the disciplinary spanking of adults. If you have a problem with that, click on that 'back' button now. You've been warned.**

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Tim scrambled to obey the barked order, hauling open his bottom, file-sized drawer and reaching for the folder Gibbs was demanding. After nearly a week on cold cases, boredom and frustration were taking their toll on his boss's temper. Tim was almost wishing that somebody would get murdered, just so they'd have an excuse to get out of the office, and something to think about other than trails that had ended in dead-ends years, sometimes decades, ago.

Tim located the file he needed, frowning in annoyance when it didn't slip easily out of the drawer. He nudged the adjacent folders aside, closed his hand more firmly over bulky file, and tugged. Still it didn't move. Tim's brow furrowed in confusion. The drawer wasn't crowded enough to create enough resistance to keep any of the files so definitively wedged in place. It didn't make any sense.

'Today, McGee!'

Tim gave up trying to pull the hanging file out of the drawer and instead tugged on the individual folder. It, too, refused to move.

'McGee!'

'It's... uh... it's stuck... or something...'

Gibbs threw his empty coffee cup into the trash and turned towards him with one raised eyebrow. Tim didn't need to be told that 'stuck' files were not an acceptable reason for keeping Gibbs waiting, especially in his current mood. In desperation, he tried to pull the contents of the file out of the folder, but he couldn't get it open far enough to unfasten the metal tangs holding the papers in place.

'Boss, it's...'

'Meet me in MTAC when you figure out how to get the damn file out of your damn drawer, McGee,' Gibbs growled, storming off.

'Problem, Probie?'

'I don't understand it, Tony! The file just won't...'

Tim trailed off, grabbing his desk lamp and angling it towards the drawer, hoping to get a better look at the reason for the file's sudden stubborn streak. A moment later, he rocked back on his heels, glaring at his partner.

'You super-glued the file into my drawer?'


	2. Chapter 2

Tony cast a cautious glance over his shoulder. He was pretty sure that nobody else was in the office so early. It wasn't unheard of for Gibbs to turn up at the crack of dawn, but with no active cases, that was unlikely to happen today.

Confident that he was alone, he crossed the narrow space between his desk and Tim's, and pulled open his top drawer. Working quickly, he scooped the assorted pens and pencils he found there into a plastic bag, then grabbed the ones that were standing in an old, handleless mug on the top of the desk and added them to his haul.

When he was confident that he had found all of the writing implements Tim had handy, Tony snapped the elastic band off of a large bundle of dried-up and empty ballpoints. He had been collecting them for over a year, stashing them at the back of his desk instead of throwing them away when they stopped working. Now, he dropped a handful of them into Tim's mug, and tucked the rest into Tim's drawer.

With a nervous glance in the direction of the elevator, Tony retreated to his own desk and fished through the loot. He selected a couple of mechanical pencils and removed the lead refills from them before setting them aside. Next, he pulled out a couple of normal pencils and pressed the tips against the side of his desk until they snapped off. The rest of the collection he stashed in his own bottom drawer before darting quickly over to Tim's desk to deposit the useless pencils into the mug alongside the equally useless pens.

Satisfied, he returned to his own desk to wait. This was going to be good.


	3. Chapter 3

Gibbs looked up, his attention caught by the hopefulness in McGee's voice. The tedium of cold cases was starting to wear on them all; a lead, any lead, would be a welcome break.

'Ok, let me take down that address...' Tim was saying, reaching for his pen holder.

His hand closed around a pencil. Glaring in disgust at the broken tip, he exchanged it for a mechanical version.

_Click. Click-click. Click-click-click-click-click-click-click._

Tim threw the pencil down on his desk and tried again, this time choosing a ballpoint.

'1...9... uh... hold on a second...'

Tim scratched furiously at the notepad, trying to get the ink flowing.

'McGee!'

When the younger man looked up, Gibbs lobbed one of his own pens towards him. Tim caught it easily, nodded his thanks, and turned his attention back to the phone call.

Gibbs shook his head slightly, leaning back in his chair. It wasn't like Tim to not be prepared to do his job, and, if anything, he tended to be a bit obsessive about keeping his desk organised. Not as bad as that JAG lawyer Tony liked to tease, of course, but...

Gibbs interrupted his own train of thought by leaping to his feet and crossing the bullpen in a couple of quick strides. Seizing Tim's pen holder, he quickly confirmed that all of the pencils were broken, and neither of the two pens he tried would write. Tim was just hanging up as he finished his examination.

'Uh, Boss...?'

Ignoring the confused look McGee was sending him, he turned towards his senior field agent, who was trying hard to look innocent.

'Ow! Boss...'

Tony rubbed dramatically at his head.

'Check that out with McGee,' he ordered, nodding curtly in the direction of the memo pad. 'And knock off the pranks,' he added, before moving off to the head.


	4. Chapter 4

Jenny could feel the hostility radiating off of Gibbs as he briefed her on the progress, or lack thereof, on the cold case she refused to let him put aside. Leave it to Jethro, she thought, to somehow manage to imply that it was her fault that last night's dead petty officer had been discovered on another team's shift, leaving Gibbs and his agents stuck with the less interesting work for a while longer.

'If there's nothing else, _Director_...'

Jenny bit back the retort that sprang to her lips at Gibbs's suggestion that she was keeping him from more important work. It was bad enough that she'd had to come down to the bullpen herself to make him give her an update on the cold file; now he was both telling her that she was wasting his time with the assignment, and hinting that she was keeping him from doing it. The man was insufferable. Besides, she thought, she knew full well that he had spent the last two hours down in the Agency pool, torturing his subordinates with _underwater_ hand-to-hand combat training.

Any reply she might have made was cut off by astonishment at Agent McGee's appearance as he stepped out of the elevator, clearly fresh from the locker-room showers. His hair was still damp. But that wasn't the most remarkable change about the younger man.

'Trying out a new hairstyle, Agent McGee?' she asked, trying to keep a straight face. Gibbs's dumbfounded expression made that more difficult, however, and she could feel the corners of her lips curling upwards.

'Oh... uh... no... uh... Director... it... uh... it must have been the chlorine... it... uh... reacted with...' Tim stammered, scurrying sheepishly to his desk, clearly wishing he could hide under it instead of sitting down. She felt sorry for the younger man, blushing furiously under the scrutiny of his boss and his boss's boss.

'Chlorine turns hair _green_, Agent McGee. Not _blue_.'

Tim flushed a deeper red at her correction.

Just then, DiNozzo shuffled in, looking carefully casual.

'What did you do to McGee?' Gibbs demanded without preamble.

Tony feigned innocence, while Tim stuttered some more, this time apparently in surprise. The poor boy hadn't even realised that he'd been the victim of another of his bored partner's adolescent jokes.

When a sharp headslap didn't produce an explanation, Jenny stepped over to the seated agent and sniffed his hair.

'If I had to guess, Jethro, I'd say it was Jello in his shampoo. Kool-Aid works better, but I don't think they make the blue one anymore.'

'Hey! Boss, I didn't...'

Gibbs ignored him for the moment, turning towards Jenny with one eyebrow raised. She didn't explain that she'd recently spent an afternoon with her oldest friend and her two toddlers. Or that she'd once helped a high-school pal turn her blond hair a vibrant 'grape', bemoaning all along that her own hair was too dark to colour effectively without resorting to bleach first. Sometimes appearing omniscient could be helpful in this job.

Gibbs finally stopped glaring at her and reached for his own gym bag, tossing his shampoo to McGee with a gruff command to go start washing it out. Tim caught the bottle with a sheepish 'Thanks,' got to his feet, and headed back to the elevator.

'With me, DiNozzo,' Gibbs barked, sidestepping around Jenny. The accordion file in his hand gaped open, giving her a glimpse of something wooden inside. Something that looked suspiciously like a paddle.

'I still need that report, Agent Gibbs...' she called after him. It wouldn't do to let him think that he'd gotten the last word on the matter, she thought. She did, however, make a mental note to tell Dispatch to give Gibbs's team the next case that came in, no matter what it was. Even some petty crime that wouldn't normally rate the attention of one of her Major Case teams would be a much-needed distraction that might just preserve her best team leader's sanity.


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks to draggon-flye, whose suggestion prompted a last-minute addition to this chapter.

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Tony snapped his phone sffhut, waved to Abby, and headed for the elevator. Gibbs hadn't told him why he was needed in MTAC, but he hoped it was something important enough to get them off the cold cases. Not that he _wanted_ there to be a terrorist attack on a US ship, or a homicidal gunman on the loose at the Naval Academy, or anything like that... he just wanted something to work on that didn't require extra-strength antihistamines to cope with the dust mites!

Was it any wonder he was using at least half of his brain cells for thinking up new and interesting ways to bug Tim? Even Gibbs seemed to understand. He was bored, and he did not do bored well.

Yesterday's paddling had been swift and painful, and he could still feel it when he sat down. His cheeky protests that the prank hadn't really been bad enough to deserve a spanking had, of course, been ignored. Gibbs had turned towards him with one eyebrow raised, pointed out that he'd told Tony to stop playing pranks, and that Tony had openly disobeyed him. He'd tried feebly to argue that it shouldn't count as disobedience if he'd spiked Tim's shampoo _before_ Gibbs told him to stop, and Tim just hadn't used it yet, but without much hope of actually convincing his boss not to spank him. He'd never yet talked his way out of a spanking, and he wasn't surprised when Gibbs had growled at him that he'd make him drop his pants if he kept it up. He'd thrown himself over the table with a dramatic sigh, yelped when the first hard stroke connected with his backside, and was sobbing before Gibbs finally let him stagger to his feet.

But there'd been a hint of laughter in the older man's eyes when he'd ordered him to buy 'Elf-Lord' a new bottle of his shampoo. 'Dad' might have had enough of his mischief, but it had seemed to Tony that he also remembered some antics of his own. One of these days, he'd have to get up the nerve to ask just how young Private Gibbs had earned some of those spankings he'd hinted at.

He needed to work on keeping the pranks in moderation, Tony had decided. And maybe he should lay off for a while, since Gibbs's patience was wearing thin.

But that didn't mean he couldn't amuse himself planning what he'd do the _next _time they found themselves suffering through a crimeless-wave.

But now, as he made his way towards MTAC, he shoved the image of Tim's desk festooned with balloons to the back of his mind and focused on doing his job. He might play the clown when things were slow, but he got the job done, when it mattered. Gibbs knew that. He wouldn't have been on his team, otherwise.

Tony reached the iris scanner just as Gibbs got to the top of the stairs leading up from the bullpen, McGee a few steps behind him. Tony felt a moment of surprise that his partners hadn't beaten him there; after all, he'd been down in Abby's lab when Gibbs had called. But before he could really start to wonder what had delayed them, all hell broke loose.

The shrieking alarm made Tony jump backwards in shock. Gibbs was at his side in seconds, and he faced his boss with a panicked expression. The scanner normally just didn't open the door to MTAC if it didn't recognise your eyes; for it to actually sound the alarm meant that it recognised you, and decided you were a serious security threat.

'Boss? I...'

Anything Gibbs was about to say was cut off by the arrival of several heavily-armed Marines. Memories of being dragged off in cuffs, believed to be a murderer, flooded Tony's mind, and he had to force himself to keep breathing. He was only dimly aware of Gibbs's hand on his shoulder, the displayed IDs, the explanations about the scanner obviously malfunctioning. The Director's arrival finally convinced the Marines to stand down, and somebody somewhere finally turned off the lights and sirens that had every eye in the bullpen focused on them.

Still shaken, Tony turned towards his boss. Gibbs's livid expression made his heart start to race again.

Until he realised that the anger wasn't directed at him.


	6. Chapter 6

Tim howled in pain, helpless to avoid the agonizing blaze of leather. Gibbs's hand was planted firmly in the middle of his back, keeping him pressed against the conference-room table. He knew that he couldn't escape, but he struggled anyway, screaming again when another lash landed hard on his throbbing ass.

'It was just a prank!' he shrieked, tears streaming down his face.

It wasn't fair, he thought. Tony had started it, had been playing pranks on him all week before Gibbs finally took a paddle to him for it. Tim had made a single effort at retaliation, and Gibbs was _whipping_ him!

If he'd ever wanted definite evidence that Tony was their boss's favourite, this was it.

He'd nearly fainted when he saw Gibbs taking the old leather strap out of his bottom drawer. He'd known he'd probably be spanked for altering the iris scanner's database, but he'd been sure Gibbs would use the paddle, like he had done with Tony. It hadn't occurred to him that he would be punished so much more severely than his partner, especially when he had done less to deserve it.

In hindsight, he probably should have expected this to happen. After all, Tony was the boss's pet, the one who reminded him of himself, the one who was indulged when he flirted with witnesses, goofed around in interrogations, and basically acted like a child. Tim rarely stepped out of line, but when he did, he was inevitably punished for it. And even Tony admitted that Gibbs had never used his belt to spank him, like he had so often done with Tim. It should have been obvious that Tony would get off with a few swats with a paddle, but he'd be whipped.

'It was just...' he repeated weakly, knowing it was futile. Gibbs wouldn't consider anything he had done to be in the same category as Tony's antics.

To his surprise, the expected stroke didn't fall. But Gibbs kept his hand planted in the middle of his back, and his voice was stern when he replied.

'It wasn't _just_ a prank, McGee. Tony could have ended up in a cell. Not to mention that your '_prank'_ would only work if Tony needed access to MTAC for something. Meaning that your '_prank'_ would keep him from doing his job, quite possibly during an emergency.'

'But Tony...'

'Tony has been a pain in the ass all week. But his jokes have been harmless.'

Of course Gibbs would think that, Tim thought. He opened his mouth to point out that his hair was still tinted blue despite repeated shampooing, but then clamped it shut. A smart-assed comment about DiNozzo was likely to just get him whipped harder.

But Gibbs seemed to know what he was thinking anyway, telling him firmly that no permanent damage had been done before continuing, 'Nothing DiNozzo did needed the Director's intervention, and he didn't create a risk to national security.'

'National... but... Boss, I didn't think...'

'That's right, Tim. You didn't _think_.'

The pressure on his back suddenly lifted, and Tim glanced over his shoulder to see Gibbs scrubbing his hand over his head in frustration.

'Dammit, McGee, you know better than this. You want to get back at Tony for the crap he pulls, that's one thing. But use that brain of yours, and figure out where the boundaries are. This isn't the first time that one of your so-called 'pranks' has been way over the line.'

'Boss, please... I didn't mean... I just wanted...' Tim sputtered, trying to catch his breath. He hated that he was begging, but he couldn't help himself. He had to admit, though, that his revenge sounded like a much bigger deal than he'd intended it to be, the way Gibbs was describing it.

'You look me in the eye and tell me you don't deserve this, and it'll stop right now.'

Tim whimpered, dismayed. He really didn't want to tell Gibbs to continue whipping him. But he couldn't honestly say he didn't deserve to be punished. He was still annoyed that he and Tony weren't being treated equally, but that wasn't the same thing. The problem wasn't that he didn't deserve to be punished, it was that Tony did, too, and had gotten off more lightly, as usual. But Tim couldn't say that. Reluctantly, he turned his face back towards the table and steeled himself for more pain.

Gibbs didn't say anything, just placed his hand back on Tim's back and brought the strap down hard on his ass. Tim sobbed against the table, not surprised that his boss wasn't going easy on him, despite their conversation. But, to his relief, Gibbs only delivered a few more lashes, and, unlike the only other time he'd experienced the strap, none of them landed on his thighs.

When it was finally over, two hands on his shoulders pulled him to his feet. He held himself stiffly when Gibbs wrapped a comforting arm around him. His resentment at being dealt with more harshly than Tony warred with his instinct to seek out the assurance of his mentor's embrace. After a few seconds, he pulled away, choking out a 'can I go now?' between sobs he couldn't hold in despite his best efforts. He didn't wait for an answer before stumbling blindly through the door and down the hall to the men's room.

He didn't see the look of stunned concern on Gibbs's face as he left.


End file.
